Billy Plant’s Everlasting Remembrance is earnest and quirky. Almost entirely spoken word with minimal instrumentation, typically only acoustic guitar, the album is nothing if not unique.

If you hear spoken word and think Saul Williams or Def Poetry Jam-styled poets riffing on police brutality or the country’s epidemic of sexual violence, Everlasting Remembrance might throw you for a loop.

Plant’s poetry is largely pastoral and delivered in a calm, resonant tone. He attempts to tell how the wildflower danced on the wind, as he writes on the title track, “Everlasting Remembrance,” and he does just this—and does it well.

At its best, Plant’s poetry brings a magnifying glass to the flora and fauna that make Middle Tennessee’s green spaces so enchanting, detailing “the kudzu hillsides” and “hummingbirds on trumpet creepers” and other splendor. At its worst, it’s overly earnest and thematically repetitive.

There are a couple of sung songs on Everlasting Remembrance that are bafflingly divergent in quality and approach. “Changes (Then We’re Free)” is a minor-key, Americana-styled number that makes me think Plant might have a host of high-quality pop songs tucked away in his jeans pockets, all but forgotten. But then there’s “Moonbeams,” on which the singer sounds like a folksy-crooner turned into a drunken lounge singer auditioning for an David Lynch film.

If you enjoy your quiet time in nature, or simply need some accompaniment on a slow, lazy summer day, Plant’s Everlasting Remembrance will make for good company. If you’re looking for songs you can sing along to, or works of spoken word that inspire you to change the world, this may not be for you.

Find Everlasting Remembrance and more from Billy Plant at mazedog.com/music.